An Autonomous Control Concept for Production Logistics

Abstract

Abstract. The German Collaborative Research Centre 637 'AutonomousCooperating Logistic Processes' tries to make a paradigm shift from central planning to autonomous control in the field of logistics. Among other things, autonomous routing algorithms based on internet routing protocols are developed. The Distributed Logistics Routing Protocol (DLRP) was originally designed for transport networks to match goods and vehicles and to continuously make route decisions. Now the protocol was transferred to production logistics as a promising autonomous control method. The DLRP enables the abilities for logistic objects, orders and machines, to make own decisions with the information actually and locally available. In contrast to common scheduling algorithms, the DLRP is not a planning, but a control method with the capability for multiple, user defined optimization goals. The new autonomous control concept for production logistics will be presented in this paper and a first evaluation with common scheduling heuristics will be given.

Autonomous Control of Logistic Processes: A Retrospective

“…However, the basic principles are independent of the original application scope and also hold advantages for production scheduling. Consequently, the DLRP was transferred to production scheduling with the basic idea that production orders should route themselves through a production system that consists of several workstations used for different consecutive operations (Rekersbrink et al 2010).…”